ACTION
The Cross-Regional Project resulted from discussions in 2007 between Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire children's service staff, concerned about the lack of local residential child care provision. "We were sending children all over the country to services that didn't appear to have good outcomes," recalls Buckinghamshire head of service for children's care Simon Brown, who was Oxfordshire's placements manager at the time. "They lost communication with friends and family, schools, doctors and CAMHS [Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service] workers. All we were doing was containing children, not helping them move forward. So it made sense to do something together about this."
The two authorities started meeting with colleagues in Hertfordshire, Bracknell Forest, Reading and Milton Keynes to discuss solutions, drawing up a specification for a local, all-inclusive therapeutic residential care service with education, which they invited bids for in 2009. The 21 applications were whittled down to five, among them Keys. What clinched it for Keys was its specialist education expertise.
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